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 nyone
who was forced to endure a search of his home by the secret police
under the Communist regime in the Czech Republic knows the feeling:
a reckless invasion of the intimacy of one’s home, the sickening
knowledge that one’s most intimate space, full of memories and emotions,
has been defiled. The assault on one’s emotions hurts more than
the loss of things. It will take some time before the apartment
feels like home again.
The world
is going through something similar after the attack on America.
We feel compassion for the victims, and hope that measures are taken
quickly to ensure national security. But more deeply, we must ponder
this question: What shall we do with this world so that it can again
become our home?
I am observing
the cataclysm and its aftermath from the thoughtful silence of Oxford,
and I realize that these events close a large chapter in the history
of Western Civilization, a chapter whose composition began here
centuries ago. This event is the third in a series that shook the
assurances of a civilization built on the enlightened faith in the
power of reason. The first was what took place in Auschwitz: the
flame of hatred, which nearly consumed an entire human race. This
horror burst forth from a nation which was rightly considered to
be among the most culturally advanced countries of the world. The
second was the oil crisis of the seventies: it swept away the illusion
that this planet's natural resources are practically inexhaustible,
and that humankind is moving steadily on the road of scientific
and technological progress toward a blissful future. Now, another
illusion has disappeared: the notion that the ideals of an open
democratic society are so attractive that the whole world will sooner
or later accept them, just as the world has embraced the advantages
of Western science and technology.
Make no mistake:
The terrorist attack on America was not simply the work of a small
group of madmen. It was the biggest battle to date in an ongoing
war between closed and open societies. It is a new phase in a long
struggle in which forces within the former “third world” decided
to exchange defense for offense. Up to this point, they have been
rejecting the cultural influences of the Western world. Now they
feel strong enough to start destroying them. These forces are powerful
not just because they are determined and driven by ideology, but
also because they skillfully use the weak spots of today’s West,
such as drug abuse (most likely the source of much of the income
of the terrorist groups), “moral weariness,” and fascination with
violence, which is omnipresent in the popular entertainment industry.
I do not want
to superficially identify what happened in September as God’s punishment
for the consumer civilization of the West. I defend Western civilization
from the negative labels. Fundamentalist calls to “rearm the West
ideologically” seem to me as risky for freedom — the fundamental
Western value — as populist calls for the rule of a strong
hand, of powerful police control of dissident movements, and a harsh
military response. There will undoubtedly be efforts to strengthen
security in ways that limit freedoms.
The response
to this terrorism must be much more than a defense of national security.
We must carefully think through the meaning of “security,” and ensure
that we do not lose sight of the values of our civilization and
culture. A xenophobic view, seeing the sources of the threat only
in forces which are distant geographically (“evil Muslims”), would
be a mistake. And we must ensure that we act according to our conscience,
and not on a spirit of revenge which will prevent us from escaping
a downward spiral of fear and violence. Before our shocked world
returns to something resembling normal everyday activity (pain and
horror and unfortunately the strong sense of solidarity will wash
away), we must take a moment to think about the state of the world
and the way it functions.
Use of violence
in international relations cannot be the ultimate solution. While
it might stop the genocide of Balkan dictators, it cannot resolve
deep cultural conflict between traditional and modern societies.
An angry rallying cry such as “The only answer to terrorism is to
kill the terrorists!” might gain political points, but it is foolish:
Threatening Arab terrorists with death is not threatening them at
all. They welcome it, and in any case, we cannot annihilate the
whole planet. The communities throughout the world which feed and
otherwise support these groups out cannot be physically destroyed.
A long-term solution to the terrorist threat cannot be limited to
retaliatory or security measures.
The world’s
experience with Nazi crimes, the existence of nuclear weapons, and
fear of Communist totalitarianism led to the acceptance of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Oil crises strengthened consciousness
of environmental responsibility. And now, at least a segment of
humankind has grasped the fact it is necessary to actively battle
for fundamental values. Today’s manifestation of evil, in the form
of a terrorist attack, also forces us to change our thinking, and
to look for new alternatives.
It seems to
me that it is time to formulate a new “moral ecology” that fosters
care of the environment of values. In this environment of values,
open society can not only survive, but also gain such credibility
that its citizens will find it worth the effort to defend it, and
for many of those who do not live in it, it will be an inspiration
rather than a threat.
The attack
on Manhattan will represent a victory for terrorism to the extent
that the world succumbs to fear. We have not seen fighting armies,
but we have seen thousands of people just like us fall into the
flames. Coping with our fear and sorting out our relationship to
life should be the first steps in our own reflection. Was the horrible
similarity of the events in U.S.A. to the sequences from thousands
of films fed to hungry viewers every night by commercial TV stations
only a coincidence? Some witnesses to the New York tragedy describe
it as if they had somehow found themselves in the world of action
and horror films. Did this fantasy world somehow spill over onto
the streets of New York? The entertainment industry’s glorification
of violence may well have become the most popular psychological
drug for suppressing the deeper anxieties of civilization. Lack
of a respect for life, especially in its most fragile forms, and
a willingness to abuse medical inventions to manipulate human beings
and the essence of life itself for commercial purposes, render us
less able to struggle with violence and death.
If respect
for life is not the cornerstone of our culture, and if we do not
begin solving societal problems without escaping into shallow entertainment,
drug abuse, and playing games with emotions of fear and aggression,
then all the attempts to defend our civilization by one or another
kind of violence will only demonstrate that we are only able to
play with the cards dealt to us by others. But they are better at
this game than we are. It is difficult to judge to what extent the
September assassins were inspired by the dark side of Islamic tradition
and to what extent they were influenced by popular American films
and TV series.
Sooner or
later, the West will have to learn to communicate effectively with
the Islamic world. A chasm of complete mutual distrust lies between
the Islamic and Western worlds, and understandably, the September
events enlarged this gap dramatically. Although the great majority
of Islamic countries and organizations condemned the terrorists,
it is not possible to deny that the September attack can be understood
only in the context of this struggle between civilizations. While
it is not possible to negotiate with terrorists, of course, it is
crucial that we get to know the Islamic world, and understand the
circumstances that produce deviant offshoots of Islam and cruel
terrorists.
It may be
that the understandable emotions raised by the New York catastrophe
make deeper communication between the West and the Islamic world
difficult to imagine today. Nevertheless, it is essential for survival
of the world. Perhaps intellectuals and the clergy might gradually
pave the way for a political and diplomatic mission, if they take
seriously the moral and political gravity of this step. I rely here
on my own experience. Two years ago, I sat with Islamic clergy in
the center of Islamic thought at Al Azhar University. I am not an
Islamic specialist, but what I do know about it makes it impossible
for me to join those who demonize Islam as a whole, or reduce this
enormous living culture to bands of extremists. I think that open
Christian thinkers can fulfill an eminently important task at this
historical moment: They are exactly the ones who can understand
not only the strict world of Islamic law to which they are connected
through monotheistic faith of the Old Testament, but also the secular
world of the West, which was not born by accident on the land cultivated
by the Christian faith for centuries.
I believe
it is correct for Christians of the West to be sympathetic with
those who have suffered so much in this attack. And even with all
the soft spots and failures of Western civilization, they won’t
let themselves to be drawn into joining opponents of an open society.
Western Christians must not only value the precious freedom of their
own culture, they must also work to understand a culture with distinctly
different values, in this case the Islamic understanding of the
world.
The September
attack on America was another nail in the coffin of the “modern
World,” whose center has been in Atlantic civilization. A different
world, which does not accept our values by definition, is being
born — whether we like it or not. If we want to defend our
values — including the principle that arguments must be finally
solved through reasonable discussion — we must place our trust
in them again. We must not lose sight of the fact that the greatest
tragedy would be, if in fighting the opponents of "Western Civilization,"
the open societies of the West became closed societies themselves.
Mr. Halík
is a professor at Charles University in Prague and currently a visiting
fellow at the Becket Institute in Oxford.
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